


Maria

by waterbird13



Series: Empathic Responses [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, Grief, M/M, Maria Stark - Freeform, Maria Stark's life was terrible, Memories, Omega Maria Stark, Omega Tony, Societal Issues, alpha bucky, graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24157192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterbird13/pseuds/waterbird13
Summary: Tony and Bucky have a date that, while melancholy, brings them closer.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Empathic Responses [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1161500
Comments: 12
Kudos: 185





	Maria

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all!
> 
> Bet you'd thought you'd seen the last of me.
> 
> In all seriousness, I'm trying to work on having a thing to post every week or two during this time, and I was motivated to work on this.
> 
> The start of this is a deleted scene from the original fic. Tony and Bucky have Thai food and then have sex for the first time in Empathic Responses. It started as Italian, with Bucky trying to impress Tony, but then Maria got brought up, and that just wasn't something I could resolve neatly and easily in that space without killing the pacing, nevermind solve in one night so they would still want to have sex after. So I saved the bit I had and set it after the whole fic was over. This is post IW, post everything. It probably takes place after Heat, too.
> 
> This fic obviously discusses Maria and grief, so that's a bit melancholy. Tony reflects a lot on the unfair things that have happened to his mother--how a lot of her life was determined by others, how she was often deeply unhappy, and how she's often not considered her own entity. Bucky obviously killed Maria, but this isn't news to our characters and they have long since handled the sharpest emotions around that. No one is mad at each other here.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this little peak back into this verse. I'm hoping there might be more, if people are still into it, although I'm not 100% what that more will be yet. I have some ideas, but feel free to let me know what you think.

Tony’s had a long day. A long few months, if he’s honest. He’s been trying to get his alpha voice blocking device into remote corners of the globe, traveling and globe-trotting and glad-handing with politicians and business moguls alike to make it accessible to all.

He’s been gone four weeks, and quickly swung by Cambridge to see Peter before coming back to New York. He’s about ready to drop.

But he perks up when he enters the kitchen, instinctively knowing where to go to find Bucky. A sauce is simmering on the stove, and, unless Tony’s missed his mark entirely, that pasta is homemade.

He groans, ripping off his tie to ditch it on the back of a chair. “What’d I do to deserve this?” He asks, coming up behind Bucky, leaning up to kiss the base of his neck, just below where his hair ends, that bare inch of skin.

Bucky turns to kiss him, slow and steady and something Tony is more than happy to return. Somehow, he ends up backed against the counter, Bucky’s hands on his hips as Tony tries to pull Bucky closer, always closer.

Bucky breaks the kiss. His eyes are blown wide, a little bit, and Tony feels the ever-present slow, curling satisfaction at making that happen.

“I heard a rumor—” Rhodey blabbed, Tony interprets— “That someone likes Italian food.” He ushers Tony over to the table, where Tony goes willingly enough, sliding into a seat as Bucky makes up bowls to bring to the already-set table.   


“Mhm,” Tony says. “Mom was Italian. Sometimes, you could coax a genuine reaction from her with the right food.”

When Bucky doesn’t react to that, he processes what he said and grimaces. Right. The thing they really still don’t talk about. If Tony had more sleep, he’d have remembered to keep his mouth shut.

Tony rubs a hand over the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. “I am just a damn mood-killer.”   


“S’okay,” Bucky says softly. “Your Mom, uh…”   


“She’s not pleasant date conversation,” Tony says. “Not for a night you’ve gone and…” He shakes his head. In for a penny, he supposes. Never mind that it’s weird as hell to talk about her with Bucky. He doesn’t want Bucky to think that he  _ won’t _ , or something. That this is a forbidden topic. Because it’s not. Sure, Tony doesn’t talk about his mom much, to anyone, the memories of her locked away like secreted away treasures. And this has been—will likely remain—an uncomfortable point between them. They don’t talk about it, but it’s not  _ forbidden _ . It’s a sharp edge worn almost smooth, with love and time, but nevertheless still catching.

But he started this and he’s damn well going to finish it, Tony supposes.

“She was…very sad. I loved her, but everything about her life was very sad. Maybe she was happy before she and Howard mated, I don’t know. People always said she was beautiful.  A testament to omega beauty, is what some magazine called her when I was still a kid. To me, she always looked sad. High as a kite and sad.” Tony manages a small smile. “You would have blown her mind.”   


“Me?”

Tony nods. “I think she did want well for me, even if she didn’t know how to show it most of the time. And you’re…everything Howard ever failed to be, the exact opposite, in fact, and it would have blown her mind to see an alpha treat omegas like you do.”

“It’s nothing special.”   


“It is,” Tony disagrees. “It shouldn’t be, but it still is.” He sighs. “So, what Italian food have you presented me with tonight?” He manages, the subject growing uncomfortable, a distinct prickly feeling tainting the air.

Bucky, bless him, still looks highly uncomfortable, but pulls it together enough to make a face. “I feel like I’m on those cooking shows Peter and Vision watch, about to be told why everything I make sucks.”   


“Well, I am the Italian expert,” Tony says, as haughtily as he can. Then he softens. “I always love your food, Bucky.”   


“Sap,” Bucky accuses softly, but he pushes the fork closer to Tony’s hands, and Tony digs into the dish without any more prompting.   


“It’s good,” Tony says, and then realizes he has pasta trailing out of his mouth and hastily slurps it up. The food is delicious and it turns out that he’s starving. It’s been a long day.   


“What’d she cook for you?” Bucky asks. His voice is low, slow, like he’s pushing through a wall or something which, if Tony really thinks about it, it’s like he is.

Tony swallows. “The issue was, what didn’t she make. I think she’d have genuinely been happy to be a stay-at-home omega, if only she’d had her family. Or a gaggle of kids, at least. In Italy, she had like, eight siblings or something. I don’t know: never got to meet them. She’d get in these moods, and…she’d cook enough we’d be eating it for a week, me and the help and her, if I could convince her to eat any of it.”

Tony closes his eyes for a moment, savoring his food and the memory. Maria would spend the day at the stove, in a daze so different than her usual one. She’d hum as she worked, and if Tony could spare the time from the lab and school to be there, they’d talk in Italian, and it was the most real moments he ever got with her.

Bucky smiles softly. “My Ma was like that,” he remembers. “Well. When there was any money for it. And there were six of us, plus Steve and his Ma and a dozen cousins besides. So we ate it all quicker than she could get it on the table.”

Tony smiles back. It’s nice, in its way. Weird. Weird as fuck, actually, to talk about his mom and Bucky’s childhood, nearly a hundred years in the past.

“Tell me more about her.”

Tony blinks. “You want to…why?”

Bucky shrugs. “‘Cause she’s your Mom and she’s important to you?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Tony says honestly.

“If you don’t want to talk about her…if it’s too uncomfortable…” Bucky flexes his metal hand. He probably doesn’t even realize that he’s done it, but Tony definitely notices.

“It’s not that,” Tony hurries to say, although he doesn’t know if that’s entirely true. At any rate, it’s mostly not that. “It’s just…my Mom’s life was miserable and I don’t know what to talk about.” He closes his eyes. “My Mom played the piano when she was lucid. She was talented, too. We used to play four-hand pieces.”

Bucky smiles softly at him. “Were you any good?”   


“I didn’t practice enough,” Tony admits, with a wry smile. “Sometimes she didn’t notice, but usually if we were playing, she was lucid, and she’d give me an earful for it.” He closes his eyes, lets the old words wash over him. “You know how Dad used to leave us? To go find Cap?”

“Mhm.”

“Obadiah would look in on us, but it wasn’t the same. We were…it was us and the Jarvises, and we were pretty much free. That’s usually when she’d cook for us.”

Tony abruptly realizes he’s neglected his food. He takes another bite. Still good. Still sending memories of his Mom flying.

Bucky watches him, soft and patient, and something inside of Tony eases. They’ve never spoken about Maria at any length before, leaving it as a mostly-healed wound between them. And it is a mostly healed wound. Tony doesn’t blame Bucky for Maria’s death, not in the slightest, not anymore. Not in a long, long time.

But something releases inside of him, like he’s been holding onto something he didn’t even know about.

He mentally reviews his next-day schedule. Nothing that can’t be moved, and he hasn’t been in a long time.

“Want to…want to come to her grave, with me?”   


Bucky starts, his hand shaking enough to send his bowl several inches away from him. “Are you sure? You don’t have to…that’s not something you have to invite me into.”

Tony’s sure. Tony’s sure that, as much as they’ve kept a barrier between this and them, that it’s right to bring Bucky with him. “I told you. My Mom would have loved you.”

Bucky’s next breath is deep and shaky, uncertain but determined. “I…okay, then.”

Bucky leaves the next morning before Tony wakes up, which isn’t something Tony is usually too pleased about. He forgives him, though, when Bucky comes back with still-steaming coffee.

He also comes back with flowers, which cause Tony a double-take.

Bucky has never brought him flowers before. And they’re pretty, sure, but Tony doesn’t really know what to do with flowers, other than buying them for other people, he supposes. He’s an expert on buying them for Pepper, and now May, and Rhodey’s mother, and Rhodey himself every once in a long while. Not that he ever really knows what he’s buying. He’s more an expert at handing over his credit card.

Bucky sees his eyes tracking the flowers, and he blushes. “I…Is it too much?”   


It clicks for Tony then. Right. He shakes his head, moves to take them out of Bucky’s hand, setting them aside before gripping Bucky’s bicep. “No. They’re, uh, pretty.”

They’re red and yellow. Iron Man colors, not the colors people usually leave at graves, as far as Tony recalls, but it feels…right.

“When do you want to go?”

Tony uses his free hand to relieve Bucky of his coffee burden—and bring the drink to his lips, he’s only able to hold out so long—and studies Bucky. Fidgety and blushing. Nervous, making Tony’s nose wrinkle a bit. 

He takes another drink. “You know you don’t have to impress her, right?” 

“She’s your mom, Tony,” Bucky replies softly. Tony supposes he’s at least a little right. She’s his mom, and she may be some sort of haunting spectre between them. Tony might never have been forced to witness Bucky’s end of the deal, but he knows full well that Maria Stark featured in both their BARF sessions, and she attends their nightmares upon occasion.

“Let me get dressed,” Tony says instead of any of that. “I’ll change and we can go.”   


He takes his coffee with him, and hops in the shower. Bucky doesn’t join him, which is a pity, because shower sex is  _ great _ for getting out nervous energy. Then again, it’s probably not quite the right type of nervous energy.

Tony doesn’t dress up for his Mom. He  _ cleans up _ for her, goes freshly showered and in clean, neat clothes. But he dresses up for plenty of people in his life. So had Maria Stark. It had never made either of them any happier.

When he goes back out to the living room, Bucky’s changed as well. He dressed up, at least a little. Pressed slacks and a nice shirt and shiny shoes, and Tony does take a moment to appreciate the whole package.

“Too much?”

Tony looks him over again, a little more critically. Imagines if Maria were alive. If she lived and Howard died, if he got to bring his boyfriend—the indisputable love of his life—to meet her for the first time. 

He steps closer, rolls Bucky’s sleeves up for him, kisses his cheek softly.“Perfect,” he manages.

Maria really would have loved him.

Maria and Howard are buried a little ways outside of the city, in a cemetery that was evidently a desirable place to end up, once upon a time. Obadiah had taken care of most of the arrangements.

Tony remembers this place clear as day, even after all these years. Remembers an alpha coming for him here, at the service, barely a half dozen yards from his parents’ still open graves. Remembers Obadiah’s heavy hand on his shoulder, which had once maybe felt reassuring.

Remembers coming back a few nights later, to sit with his Mom and firmly ignore his Dad.

He’d shown back up in the city covered in dirt and faintly exhausted the next morning, a fair bit drunk, and Obadiah hadn’t been too pleased. Tony had just inherited the company, after all. They had to face the board that day.

“So, this is it,” he announces unnecessarily, stopping the car. He jerks his chin at the joint black stone, nestled amongst the many others.

There’s no space for Tony here. Not that he wants to be buried with them, because he doesn’t. But it hadn’t even been a thought, because the assumption was that Tony would be buried with his own alpha.

He looks sidelong at Bucky. It’s a morbid thought, but, stones or no stones, Tony isn’t getting any younger.

He can’t think about that right now. 

Bucky’s waiting for him, clearly, so Tony leads the way out of the car and over to the stones, sparing barely a glance for the  _ Howard Stark _ side of the stone.

_ Howard Stark, 1917-1991. Shaping the future _ .

Tony grits his teeth and moves on to the stone that never did anyone any justice.  _ Maria Stark, 1939-1991. Beloved wife, devoted omega. _

Obadiah had handled arrangements, and every time Tony comes here, he debates knocking that damn stone over and starting fresh.

“Hey, Mom.”

He’s never been much for talking at gravestones. She’s not  _ here _ . She’s not anywhere, not anymore, not as far as he can tell. But therein lies the problem. His mom is  _ gone _ , and has been for getting close to thirty years now. He has to say something, somewhere, or the pressure becomes too much.

“This is Bucky,” he continues. “Mom, I…I love him, and you would have too.”

He doesn’t mention the other facts. He and Bucky both know. Maria is dead. It’s irrelevant, right now.

“Hi, Mrs. Stark,” Bucky murmurs, stepping closer and laying his flowers down. “You’ve got a great son.”

Maria Stark,  _ beloved wife, devoted omega _ , was buried in a pristine black dress with her makeup and hair done by an expert. Nevermind that she hated wearing black, nevermind that thinking of the beauty exploitation of a dead woman makes Tony shake a bit. She was buried next to a husband who neglected her, mistreated her, after a life no one deserved, under a gravestone that ignores her as a person.

She was buried with half a life lost in a haze, just months shy of her son almost being condemned to the same fate.

Tony takes Bucky’s hand. “I wanted you to know I’m happy,” he says, looking sidelong at Bucky. “I have the company, Mom. And I’m a superhero. And I’ve got a great kid, even if…biology can go fuck itself.” he winces. “Sorry. And I got all that while still getting a great alpha. Who respects me.”

“I love him,” Bucky says, voice so soft that, if Maria really was listening from the grave, the sound would get lost between them and her. “He’s the best thing to ever happen to me, the best person I’ve ever met. He’s a hero, Mrs. Stark, and I’m so damn lucky to have him.”

Tony leans his head into Bucky’s shoulder, watches the flowers in front of the grave, and feels…something like contentment, he thinks, slowly seeping into his bones.

When they leave, Tony finds a coffee shop. It’s time, past time, for his midday cup. He could find a Starbucks, a drive through, but they have time.

It turns out to be a good idea, because the cake in the little glass display looks delectable, and maybe some sugar shared between them is what they both need. 

Bucky might be the one with the sweet tooth, but apparently Tony needs it today.

“Thank you.”

Tony hums, licks his fork clean, and squeezes Bucky’s hand with his free one. “I want you there. And everywhere. With me.”

Bucky’s eyes are so, so soft. So soft that the Tony of  _ before _ —before all this, before his life, the world, changed, before Bucky—would have flinched, would have made a dumb joke, would have ruined it. So soft that the Tony of today melts a little bit.

“I love you.”

_ I know _ , Tony almost says. 

Maybe Tony’s going soft. Maybe he’s getting old. Maybe he’s just  _ happy _ now, in a way he’s so rarely been able to be before. 

He squeezes Bucky’s hand. “I want to go home,” he announces. “Just us for a while.”

Bucky sets his fork on the almost empty plate. “Sounds good to me. Let’s go.”

And, still hand-in-hand, they head home.


End file.
